Philadelphia, PA

December 11, 2018 - January 19, 2019

Artist Statement

James Allister Sprang is a visual artist currently based in Philadelphia. James works across medium—photography, sound, duration, installation— creating a unique vocabulary of poetic symbol production that investigates society's processing of symbol and language. Sprang's work is a rigorous parrallax of new media storytelling informed by the poetry of the black experimental tradition.

Raised in Miami, Florida James Allister Sprang is a first-generation Caribbean-American. Sprang attended the Cooper Union where he received his BFA in 2013. He then continued on to complete a fellowship with The Wooster Group and insert himself into the downtown New York experimental theater scene under the guise of GAZR (pronounced “gazer”)—a poet-turned-rapper that uses hip-hop and constructs of theater to explore the latency of language. Sprang has shown his artwork and/or has performed performed under the guise of GAZR at institutions such as the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Abrons Arts Center, The Public Theater, Apollo Theater, the Brooklyn Museum, Knockdown Center, Pioneer Works, and The Kitchen.